{"id":5635,"date":"2016-11-13T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-13T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/?p=5635"},"modified":"2020-06-13T12:20:55","modified_gmt":"2020-06-13T19:20:55","slug":"loving-the-movie-and-the-crime-of-interracial-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/culture\/loving-the-movie-and-the-crime-of-interracial-love\/","title":{"rendered":"“Loving,” the Movie, and the Crime of Interracial Love."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"wedding,<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I had no idea.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In June of 1967, Eugene and I were putting the finishing touches on our wedding plans.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the United States Supreme Court was preparing to release its decision in the case of Loving v Virginia, a case that would decide whether our marriage would be legal in Virginia and throughout the country.<\/p>\n

What?<\/p>\n

I understood that our marriage would be unusual, but it never crossed my mind that it might be illegal. And not just in the South. Six days before our wedding, interracial marriage was illegal in sixteen states. If, after getting married, we\u2019d decided to move to Tennessee or Texas or any one of fourteen other states, we would have been criminals.<\/p>\n

\"us_miscegenation-svg-wikimedia-commons-by-certes\"<\/a>US states by date of repeal of anti-miscegenation laws<\/a>:<\/p>\n

gray: no anti-miscegenation laws passed<\/p>\n

green: 1780 to 1887<\/p>\n

yellow: 1948-1967<\/p>\n

red: after 1967<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then, five days before our wedding, the Supreme Court made interracial marriage legal and anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. Their reason: The laws forbidding interracial marriage had been enacted for the purpose of perpetuating white supremacy. (The legal reasoning is more complex.)<\/p>\n

\"wedding,<\/a>Eugene and I didn\u2019t know it at the time, but by the date of our wedding on Jun 17, we were back on the right side of the law.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court decision wasn\u2019t the end of it, though. Laws against interracial marriage remained on the books in sixteen states. In Alabama, local judges continued to enforce them until 1970, and they didn\u2019t get around to striking them from their books until 2000 when a citizen\u2019s initiative forced them to do it.<\/p>\n

The story of Richard Loving’s and Mildred Jeter\u2019s fight for interracial justice.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"mildred_jeter_and_richard_loving\"<\/a>It was just a coincidence (a happy coincidence) that one of the plaintiffs in the case of Loving v Virginia was named Loving, Richard Loving.<\/p>\n

He and his wife, Mildred Jeter, went to separate segregated schools. But they’d been friends since he was 17 and she was 11. By the time Mildred was 18, they were ready to get married and raise a family. But Richard was a white man and she, a black woman. They couldn\u2019t get married in Virginia.<\/p>\n

So they left their home and drove to Washington, DC to be legally wed.<\/p>\n

The trouble began five weeks later after they’d returned to Virginia. One night while they were sleeping, the county sheriff and two deputies broke into their bedroom, beamed flashlights into their eyes, and arrested and jailed them for unlawful co-habitation.<\/p>\n

The judge sentenced them to a year in jail, but in a plea bargain he agreed to a suspended sentence if they would agree to leave the state and never return together for the next 25 years.<\/p>\n

So they made a home for themselves in Washington, DC and raised three children there, taking separate trips back to Virginia to visit friends and family. They never could get used to city living, though.<\/p>\n

In 1963, after five years in Washington, DC, Mildred wanted to move back home, and she contacted Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, who referred her to the ACLU<\/a>. The case worked its way through the lower courts all the way up to the US Supreme Court. And on June 12, 1967, the case was decided in their favor by a unanimous verdict. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the opinion.<\/p>\n

\u201cLoving,\u201d the movie.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The movie about their lives came out on November 4, but only in selected cities. I\u2019m waiting for it to be more widely available. \u201cLoving\u201d is not the first movie to tell the story of the Lovings, but it promises to be the best. It received a standing ovation at Canne, and it\u2019s already named as an Oscar contender.<\/p>\n

Joel Edgerton plays Richard and Ruth Negga plays Mildred.<\/a><\/p>\n

While you\u2019re waiting for \u201cLoving\u201d to come to a theater near you, please enjoy this trailer:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zRXuCY7tRgk<\/a><\/p>\n

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 I had no idea. In June of 1967, Eugene and I were putting the finishing touches on our wedding plans. At the same time, the United States Supreme Court was preparing to release its decision in the case of Loving v Virginia, a case that would decide whether our marriage would be legal in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,1416],"tags":[1419,1424,1421,1423,387,1425,1420,1417,1422,1418],"class_list":["post-5635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-interracial-marriage","tag-loving-the-movie","tag-aclu","tag-anti-miscegination-laws","tag-interracial-justice","tag-interracial-marriage","tag-joel-edgerton-and-ruth-negga","tag-june-12-1967","tag-loving-v-virginia","tag-richard-loving-and-mildred-jeter","tag-us-supreme-court-decision"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-1sT","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":373,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/culture\/my-interracial-marriage\/","url_meta":{"origin":5635,"position":0},"title":"My Interracial Marriage","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"November 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Every marriage is an\u00a0intercultural marriage. 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